This application relates in general to a method, apparatus, and article of manufacture for providing high-speed digital communications through a communications channel, and more particularly to a method, apparatus, and article of manufacture for providing crosstalk management for high-speed signaling links.
Digital communications systems are continuously increasing the transfer rate at which data is transmitted between devices through a communications channel, for example, a backplane. One technique for increasing the data transfer rate is to encode the data prior to transmission. In this regard, there are a number of techniques for encoding data. Many of these techniques utilize different numbers of signals and modulation of symbols in order to increase the data transfer rate. One such method of modulating symbols is to use a multi-level pulse amplitude modulation (PAM-n) scheme that encodes a plurality of bits of data into or onto a single signal in which the symbols are represented as a set of signal levels between minimum and maximum signal levels.
In order to properly decode the received signal and thereby recover the original representation of the transmitted data, the signal to noise ratio for the communications links should be managed, controlled, determined and/or understood in orderto reduce the undesirable effects of crosstalk between the links of the communications channel. Thus, there is a need for crosstalk management techniques and/or structure that increase performance in channel communications as well as overcome the shortcomings of conventional crosstalk management techniques.